Results and Discussion

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quality aspect corresponds to arsenic contamination is defined as one minus the ratio of residents at risk of consuming the arsenic-contaminated groundwater to the total population. Furthermore, we consider an indicator measuring the actual health impact of the current water consumption. The fourth indicator (GSI224) presents water-related diseases as a macro index.

Regarding the management aspect (GSA23), we consider how the local government manages and improves the PWSS as the quality-controlled source for the community, how the community responds to the management and water-related policies, and how ready the community is for better water use. Based on the current social situation in this study area, the first indicator (GSI231) refers to public water coverage. This indicator reflects how much the distribution network can reach the community. The second indicator (GSI232) in this aspect is related to the PWSS capacity. This indicator refers to the balance between the water supply capacity of PWSS and the increasingly current demand resulting from the rapid urbanization in Hanoi. The third indicator (GSI233) presents the annual investment per capita compared to the required unit cost for water supply facilities. This indicator shows how much the government cares about its community in terms of budget allocation for the PWSS development. The fourth indicator (GSI234) is a measure of water affordability which is defined as one minus the ratio of maximum water price to average household income.

These four important indicators, GSI231, GSI232, GSI233, and GSI234, are government point of view. The fifth (GSI235) and sixth (GSI236) indicators present how the community responds to the current water conditions and regulations, which are mainly expressed by their willingness to pay for the PWSS improvement and willingness to participate in water-related programs.

Finally, three main GSAs (quantity, quality, and management) and their respectively three, four, and six corresponding GSIs are proposed to build up the social sustainability hierarchy for Hanoi groundwater mainly based on the current problem consideration.

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According to the index-based definitions of the indicators described in the former section, we then calculated the indicator values, which are shown in Table 4-4. The following sub-sections explain how to get the social sustainability assessment results for Hanoi groundwater from both conventional linear relationship and non-linear SIF.

Hereafter, the conventional relationship is expressed as the linear SIF.

4.2.3.1 The linear SIF case

In the case of the linear SIF in Eq. (6), each indicator value x is taken as its social sustainability index (SSI) Ω_𝐼. The sustainability indices for Ω_𝐴 and the final social sustainability index Ω are calculated by Eqs. (12) and (13), respectively. The resulting sustainability indices are shown in the column for “Linear SIF case” in Table 4-4. In terms of quantity aspect (GSA21), the indicator GSI211 is assessed at the excellent sustainability level of 0.98 according to the sustainability scale shown in Table 3-2, indicating that the majority of Hanoi communities can live off with the minimum water satisfactory of 130 liters/capita/day. The indicator GSI212 is assessed at the acceptable sustainability level of 0.55, suggesting that more than half of the communities have not suffered any water restriction situation. Lastly, the indicator GSI213 is also assessed at the acceptable sustainability level of 0.50, suggesting that water supply from PWSS is available for 12 hours per day even when the water restriction occurs. So that the SSI of the quantity aspect is assessed at a good level Ω_𝐴(1) of 0.68.

These assessment results for the quantity aspect and its indicators quite appropriate to reflect the reality, because as we explored via our questionnaire survey, most of respondents agree that the PWSS recently has been improved pretty much from a quantity perspective.

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Table 4-3 Social sustainability aspects and indicators for Hanoi groundwater resources

GSA GSI Consideration Index-based definition

Quantity (GSA21) GSI211

Minimum water satisfactory

Ratio of residents who can use at least the Vietnamese unit water demand of

130liter/capita/dayto the total population

GSI212 Water

restriction

One minus the ratio of residents who have suffered water restriction in a target year to the total population

GSI213

24-hour water supply availability

Ratio of the average water accessed hours to 24 hours in the water restriction days of the target year

Quality (GSA22)

GSI221 Arsenic contamination

One minus the ratio of residents who have risk of consuming the groundwater arsenic contamination to the total population

GSI222 Nitrogen contamination

One minus the ratio of residents who have risk of consuming the groundwater nitrogen contamination to the total population

GSI223 Coliform contamination

One minus the ratio of residents who have risk of consuming the groundwater coliform contamination to the total population

GSI224 Water-related diseases

One minus the ratio of residents who have water-related diseases to the total population

Management (GSA23)

GSI231 Public water

coverage Ratio of the coverage from the public water distribution network

GSI232 Water work

capacity Ratio of water supply capacity to demand GSI233 Annual

investment

Ratio of the annual investment in water supply per capital to the required unit costs for water supply facilities

GSI234 Water

affordability

One minus the ratio of the maximum water prices to the average capita income

GSI235 Willingness to pay

Ratio of residents are willing to pay for improving the water supply system to the total population

GSI236 Willingness to participate

Ratio of residents who are willing to participate in any water conservation and protection activities to the total population

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Similarly, in terms of quality aspect (GSA22), GSI221 and GSI222 indicators regarding arsenic and nitrogen contamination are assessed at the acceptable sustainability level. GSI223 related to coliform contamination is assessed at the good sustainability level. As a macro index, the GSI224 indicator concerning water-related disease is assessed at the excellent sustainability level, so that the sustainability index of the quality aspect is assessed at a good sustainability level of 0.66. From the quality point of view as described in the study area, however, only half of Hanoi’s population accessed PWSS, which provides the quality-controlled water source (HAWACO, 2014). That means the other half is still using the quality-uncontrolled water source that can be dangerous to human health in case of contamination. Actually, the indicator GSI221, for example, shows that more than half (56%) of the communities are at risk of arsenic poisoning due to groundwater consumption. There are a series of publications and government reports concerning arsenic contamination groundwater and its adverse human health impacts in Hanoi and RRD in the literature; Hanoi government is trying hard not only to control the ever-increasing groundwater abstraction but also raise the public awareness of this serious situation via their various communication media. The communities are recommended to use the advanced water purifiers in the urban districts and the sand filter arsenic removal technique in the sub-urban districts before use for domestic purposes. Where the sustainable society is concerned, therefore, the SSI of this indicator should be naturally assessed at the very poor sustainability level. Based on the linear SIF, however, the sustainability index of GSI221 is assessed as socially acceptable of 0.44, which is inappropriate to reflect the severe problems in Hanoi regarding arsenic groundwater pollution situation. Therefore, there is a gap between the social sustainability assessment and its reflectivity of actual quality groundwater problems in Hanoi.

In terms of management aspect (GSA23), four of six indicators, GSI231, GSI232, GSI233, and GSI234, are assessed at from the good to excellent sustainability levels, showing that not only the PWSS can cover more than two-thirds of Hanoi communities but also its capacity mostly meet the current social needs. Regarding the water investment situation, generally, Vietnam’s annual investment in water supply and

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sanitation is less than $2 per capita per year, which is almost nothing compared to the required unit cost for water supply facilities of $113 per capita (World Bank, 2010).

However, in the capital, Hanoi government recently gives much attention to reduce the high pressure on groundwater resources by financing a number of water treatment plants which take surface water from rivers in and nearby the capital. The investment indicator (GSI233) is thus assessed at good level of 0.63 but it is still not enough to meet the communities’ expectation; it is as a usual condition of a developing country. In order to find out the immense financial sources, the big efforts should come from both government and community sides.

At the management side, reducing the complexity of current regulations and policies and increasing international collaboration opportunities are highly recommended to attract more external financial sources. Along with that, it is also important to encourage the supports from the local communities. At the community side, being actively improve the current poor awareness of clean water and using it efficiently are crucial. Regarding the limited public awareness of water issues, furthermore, the index for GSI236 is almost reaching the poorest sustainability level, most of them are not willing to participate in any water-related program which is supposed to be able to broaden up the public understanding and awareness of safe water sources. This assessment appropriately reflects the unawareness stage of the majority of local communities. However as shown in GSI235, more than half (56%) of the communities are desired to contribute their financial assistances to support PWSS improvement projects, means that the majority of them accepted to pay a higher water prices if the PWSS will be more improved. Therefore, resulting from the linear SIF case, the sustainability index of the management aspect is at the good level of 0.60.

Generally, the social sustainability index Ωl of Hanoi groundwater is assessed at a good sustainability level of 0.65 (Table 3-2).

4.2.3.2 The combined linear and non-linear SIF case

We keep applying the linear SIF for the indicators of the quantity aspect (GSA21) because the sustainability assessment based on the linear SIF seems to be appropriate

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to reflect the current quantity situation of the water use in Hanoi.

In terms of quality aspect, as mentioned previously in the sub-section 4.2.3.2, the sustainability indices based on the linear SIF are not appropriate to reflect the serious situation of groundwater quality problems in Hanoi. So that, regarding to the risk of arsenic groundwater contamination, for example, if 50% (xα = 0.5) of the communities are at risk of the contamination, the SSI in this case should be assessed at some values in the very poor range levels of 0 to 0.2 (Table 3-2). This study hence roughly assumes the following condition (Eq. 21), by which if 50% (xα = 0.5) of the communities are at this risk of arsenic groundwater contamination, sustainability will be assessed at very poor value of 0.1 (α = 0.1).

I(𝑥_𝛼= 0.5) = 0.1 (21) The values of α and xα totally depend on the interests of decision-makers, which are different from situation to situation and from indicator to indicator. In order to have a better assessment results, each indicator should be judged individually, however, as the first trial for Hanoi case study, we here also use Eq. (21) for the indicators regarding nitrogen, coliform contamination risk and the health impacts of the quality aspect (GSA22). We then obtain the following Eq. (22) for sustainability index evaluations of the four quality sustainability indicators.

I (𝑥) = 0.0125𝑒^4.3944𝑥− 0.0125 (22) For the management aspect GSA23, other than the water affordability indicator GSI234, the assessments resulted from the linear SIF seem to be appropriate. GSI234 is one of the interesting indicators in this aspect because it shows up exactly how the government controls the water price which directly affects the living condition of the communities. There is actually no criterion of water affordability for any country but we could use a suggestion from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.

EPA)’s affordability criteria, which indicates that the water bill is affordable if it constitutes less than 2.5% of the median household income. Actually, in family and city scales, the price of water supply even somehow reaches 28% of the average monthly

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income (Lucía et al., 2017): $104 in Hanoi (UNDP, 2010); it is more than ten times higher than the U.S. EPA affordability criterion. It shows evidently how hard it is for the communities every single day using the safe water from PWSS. The safe water is physically available, but economically unreachable for living. So that it is necessary to apply the non-linear SIF to assess the sustainability of the water affordability indicator.

The water bill is reaching 28% in this case, the sustainability index should be assessed at some values in the poor range of 0.2 to 0.4, or even in the very poor range of 0 to 0.2. We thus roughly take the judgment Eq. (15) of (α = 0.2 at xα = 0.72) for the affordability indicator GSI234 of the management aspect GSA23.

I(𝑥_𝛼 = 0.72) = 0.2 (23) Using the same value x as shown in Table 4-4, we can get all the sustainability indices for all the indicators of the quality and GSI234 of the management aspects using Eqs. (22) and (23). The sustainability indices for Ω_𝐴 and the final social sustainability index Ω are then calculated correspondingly by Eqs. (11) and (12). Those resulting sustainability indices are also shown in the column for “Combined linear and non-linear SIF case” in Table 4-4. The results in this case are also visualized in Fig. 4-2 as a solid line in the radar chart.

From Table 4-4, all the social sustainability indices Ω_𝐼 of the indicators of quality aspect are significantly reduced, compared to those based on the linear SIF. The sustainability indices of the two indicators GSI221 and GSI222 are reduced to very poor sustainability level, and GSI223 is reduced to the poor level, revealing the community’s frustration with the poor quality of the groundwater in this target area. Thus, the sustainability index of the quality aspect is appropriately reduced from good to poor level of 0.27. These assessments results for the quality aspect and its indicators are appropriate to reflect the current situation because about one-third of Hanoi communities are dissatisfied and complained on the water quality based on the results from our 2014 questionnaire survey. There is also existed a series of adverse impacts on social and environmental conditions of groundwater over-exploitation and contamination (Berg et al., 2008; Bui et al., 2012b). The communities also know about

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this serious situation via various media, but they have no better choices other than using the current water sources.

For the indicator GSI234 of the management aspect, the sustainability index is drastically reduced to the poor level, it seems to be reflect well the unbalanced condition between the average low incomes of a part of communities and the relatively high water price. So the management aspect is appropriately assessed at the acceptable sustainability level of 0.52. This assessment makes sense because as we explored via our survey that only 6% of respondents rating the government management at good level, more than half of them (51%) rating it at acceptable level.

Consequently, the final SSI Ω for Hanoi groundwater is appropriately assessed at the acceptable level of 0.49 in this case (Table 4-4). Fig. 4-2 clearly visualizes the difference in the sustainability assessment results between the linear and the combined linear and non-linear SIF cases. In terms of the assessment reflectivity to the actual situation, the sustainability assessment results based on the combined linear and non-linear SIF are more reasonable.

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Table 4-4 Social sustainability assessment for Hanoi groundwater resources.

GSA 𝑊_𝐴(𝑖) GSI 𝑊_𝐼(𝑖, 𝑗) Indicator value (x)

Linear SIF case Combined linear & non-linear SIF case

Ω_𝑰 Ω_𝑨 ΩC Ω_𝑰 Ω_𝑨 ΩC

Quantity (GSA21)

0.33

GSI211 0.33 0.98 0.98

0.68 (Good)

0.65 (Good)

0.98

0.68 (Good )

0.49 (Acceptable)

GSI212 0.33 0.55 0.55 0.55

GSI213 0.33 0.50 0.50 0.50

Quality (GSA22)

0.33

GSI221 0.25 0.44 0.44

0.66 (Good)

0.07

0.27 (Poor)

GSI222 0.25 0.57 0.57 0.14

GSI223 0.25 0.78 0.78 0.37

GSI224 0.25 0.85 0.85 0.34

Management (GSA23)

0.33

GSI231 0.17 0.68 0.68

0.60 (Good)

0.68

0.52 ( Acceptable)

GSI232 0.17 0.87 0.87 0.87

GSI233 0.17 0.63 0.63 0.63

GSI234 0.17 0.72 0.72 0.20

GSI235 0.17 0.56 0.56 0.56

GSI236 0.17 0.15 0.15 0.15

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